Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Watercooled!

I'm on two weeks leave now, so with a little luck and a lot of persistance, I should be able to make some decent progress on the car.

Gave it a quick clean down with a chamois and a bucket of water. Nothing too special because of the lack of boot and sunroof seals. I'll have to do something about at least the sunroof before I use it in any events I think.

Whipped up a quick trailer from an old A frame, some Holden Statesman IRS arms/hubs and a couple of commodore interceptors. This is to tow behind the ride-on mower so I can move things from the back shed to the front or vice versa easier.

Made a bottom radiator support for standard width "skinny" radiators (like my aluminium one I've been using for all this mock-up work). I also bashed the metal next to the lower radiator outlet to make it easier to install/remove the radiator with the top support in place.

Welded on. The groove captures the front-most part of the radiator... or at least it does for standard ones. I installed my larger copper core radiator when I tried to fill the alloy one and discovered I'd broken an end tank trying to work out how to get it in and out before hammering back the metal near the lower outlet.

The bigger radiator straddles the bottom mount so holds it securely enough anyway. I'd love to say that was by design but sadly, just a coincidence. The radiator cannot move side to side once in situ because it's a very tight fit between the two side bars on the fan mounting rail.

Here I've finished modifying and boxed in the area where the top hose goes; unfortunately I mis-measured this area slightly when making the radiator support so this unsightly solution is the result.

Hooking up the side hose, lower hose (I have used some 38mm copper cut to size as an interim solution while I wait for my aluminium joiner to come from eBay)

Also hooked up the bleeder hoses. As best I can tell this will work very similarly to how it does in a Falcon and mean no airlocks.

Brackets made to hold the top of the radiator. These worked slightly better with the skinny radiator but still do the job with the larger one (not pictured)

A better shot showing the top mount and top hose clearance.

From the other direction.

Hooked up the coolant temp sender to the gauge. I did a bit of looking on the internet and as best I could tell the senders and gauges used across the industry (except for digital ones) are pretty well universal.

Here's a video from before the coolant temp sender was hooked up. The popping on revs indicates the car is running lean. I've since adjusted the injector scale back to 36lbs (from memory it was at about 38/39) and it seems to have fixed this issue.

Next job: mount and wire thermofan, then modify bumpers (if required) to clear the fan. Once that's done I can start working out how I'm going to mount the lights and light surrounds.